He’d lied about killing that man, this time. But there’d been others. It didn’t matter.
And he knew about Blade. He’d used Blade. He’d used someone I cared about against me, and according to his brothers, it was the same thing he was doing to his sister. Brooke still cared for me. Tanner and Jonah had said as much, and Kai was using me to find her. Against her wishes.
“Fuck you,” I gutted out. I couldn’t stop myself.
A rage built in me. It bloomed, filling my chest.
“Fuck you,” I said it again, blinking to clear my vision.
“You didn’t know about his feelings?”
My throat burned.
It wasn’t his place to make me face it, to force the time I’d have to deal with it. That wasn’t his place.
Fuck. Him.
I didn’t reply. I didn’t trust myself right now.
“You don’t love him back.”
Even that statement, because it was a statement, not a question, infuriated me.
I rounded on him, my eyes blazing. “It’s not your place.”
He studied me, not reacting. I felt his gaze over every inch of my body, and he almost lazily looked back up to meet my eyes. His head tilted to the side.
“No, it’s not. But you’re forgetting your place.”
I felt slapped.
He was right.
He murdered people. I saved them.
I almost scoffed until he added softly, “I will do anything to find my sister, and love is the best motivation there is.”
I had looked away, but damn him. I lifted my eyes, against my wishes. As always, something about him drew me in, his words lured me.
Our eyes locked. I could almost hear the jail cell click in place, with me on one side and him on the other. He dangled the key in front of me, laughing, and I was helpless to stop listening to him, hopeless to find a way out.
That’s how I felt until his next words washed over me.
“I thought at first to use you to find my sister, but seeing you, I knew you would never turn against Brooke. Because of love. You love her. I don’t know if it’s as a friend, as a sister, or because she brought a moment of good into your life, but for whatever reason, I know you are loyal. I respect that, but if I can’t use you in one way, I will use you in another. There are always angles.”
He tipped his head forward, his eyes almost admonishing me. “I’m very good at my job, and there are always ways to get what I want. Finding my sister is what I want.” Right now.
He didn’t say the words, but I heard them.
There was no judgment in what he had said. He talked to me as if he were educating a student, filling me in, letting me know what to expect from him.
Maybe that’s what he was doing?
He’d told me I was a surprise to him last night.
Maybe I needed to turn off the emotions and listen to him as a Hider. My training said no emotions. I was embarrassed because in that regard, I knew he was outdoing me. He was winning. I didn’t know quite what the battle was, but I knew I was losing.
“Blade sent you new coordinates for Brooke then?”
He loved his sister. Perhaps I could turn the tables? Get him to talk.
He smiled at me, and I knew he was laughing. I saw it in his eyes.
“I’ve been doing this all my life. You’re playing catch-up, but it is fun to see.”
He sat back, turning away and pulling his phone out.
The conversation was done. He had dismissed me.
And damn him, because now all I wanted to do was to get him to talk.
Instead, I sat back and plotted.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
When we stopped again, it was in the basement parking lot of a hotel.
Vehicles surrounded us, and I was stunned that Kai had let us get so close to others. The guards stood around us. Kai stepped to the side and talked to one of them before the man nodded and left us, hurrying across the lot.
A door closed in the distance.
We could hear conversation, a laugh, a baby crying.
“We’re in Kelowna.”
I didn’t know what surprised me more, that we were in a small city a few hours from Vancouver, that Kai had told me, or that Blade had sent us here.
I only said, “Oh.”
Kai eyed me again, his eyebrows up. “You’re not surprised? You expected this?”
I shot him a look. “I thought you were better at this than I could ever be?”